Crucis

Inquisition actually has bonuses for each race. Humans gets an extra ability point, elves ranged resistance, dwarves magic resistance, Qunari extra HP I think. GIving humans an extra ability point or even 2 is an interesting idea. Better than the racial benefit they currently get, that's for damned sure. As for elves, I'd think that they'd be more magically resistant than dwarves, but maybe that just a misperception. Dwarves might be a good candidate for extra HP, maybe a slightly greater HP per point of CON bonus. I just like "always on" racial abilities, and seriously dislike ones that require the character to be seriously injured to be triggered.

Well, if you're thinking all the animats in the Endless Paths, the 2 times I've played parties with WM1/2 installed, I've had the EP done before heading into the WM, at least far enough to find The Redeemer. But yes, if you got the Redeemer before getting deep enough into the EP to face all those animats, anyone wielding it would go thru them with ridiculous ease.

A high level Paladin armed with St. Ydwen's Redeemer does this job well. His sword deals with vessels and he can take the new Abjuration ability to deal with spirits. Oh, I know all about the power of The Redeemer vs vessels. Honestly, I think that it's OP, and IMO the weapon would be more balanced if the insta-kill effect was replaced with the normal +4 accuracy, +25% damage effect vs vessels. Right now, a character wielding The Redeemer can make the game's final battle laughably easy, because The Judges are vessels. Also, for what it's worth, there's this little ring, called IIRC, the Bartender's ring that gives the user +20% damage vs vessels and spirits, as well as +5 to will. That's a nice little ring to have handy when you go undead hunting.

Durance Level 2 Athletics 2, Lore 5, Mechanics 2 - Bear's Fortitude Level 3 Athletics 3, Lore 6, Mechanics 3 Level 4 Athletics 3, Lore 6, Mechanics 4 - Sanctifier Level 5 Athletics 3, Lore 7, Mechanics 5 Level 6 Athletics 3, Lore 7, Mechanics 6 - Brilliant Radiance Level 7 Athletics 3, Lore 8, Mechanics 6 Level 8 Athletics 3, Lore 8, Mechanics 7 - Interdiction Level 9 Athletics 3, Lore 9, Mechanics 7 - Spell Mastery: Barbs of Condemnation Level 10 Athletics 3, Lore 9, Mechanics 8 - Painful Interdiction Level 11 Athletics 3, Lore 10, Mechanics 8 - Spell Mastery: Divine Mark Level 12 Athletics 3, Lore 10, Mechanics 8 - Scion of Flame Level 13 Athletics 3, Lore 10, Mechanics 9 - Spell Mastery: Pillar of Faith Level 14 Athletics 3, Lore 11, Mechanics 9 - Vulnerable Attack Level 15 Athletics 3, Lore 11, Mechanics 9 - Spell Mastery: Searing Seal Level 16 Athletics 3, Lore 11, Mechanics 10 - Empowered Interdiction Equipment: Durance's Robe (Of Constituion, Burn-Proofed) Ring of Searing Flames Seal of Faith Unwavering Resolve Shod-in-Faith Weapons: Durance's Quarterstaff (Damaging 2, Slaying-Vessel) Rod of Pale Shades (Slaying-Vessel) Sagani Level 2 Marksman - Stealth 4, Survival 5 Level 3 Vicious Aim - Stealth 5, Survival 6 Level 4 Primal Bane - Stealth 5, Survival 7 Level 5 Stalker's Link - Stealth 6, Survival 7 Level 6 Penetrating Shot - Stealth 6, Survival 8 Level 7 Heal Companion - Stealth 7, Survival 8 Level 8 Accurate Wounding Shot - Stealth 7, Survival 9 Level 9 Revive Companion - Stealth 8, Survival 9 Level 10 Faithful Companion - Stealth 8, Survival 10 Level 11 Stunning Shot - Stealth 9, Survival 10 Level 12 Merciless Companion - Stealth 9, Survival 11 Level 13 Twinned Arrows - Stealth 9, Survival 11 Level 14 Resilient Companion - Stealth 10, Survival 11 Level 15 Predator's Sense - Stealth 10, Survival 12 Level 16 Vicious Companion - Stealth 10, Survival 12 Equipment: Wayfarer's Hide (Of Perception, Pierce-Proof) Stalker's Torc Weapons: Persistence (Slaying-Beast) Aattuuk (main hand), Dîal Ewn Dibita (off-hand) Note: your results may vary, but I try to avoid anything that causes Sagani to fire too quickly. Her job is to apply the effects that make Itumaak lethal. Her DoT attacks don't stack, so there isn't a whole lot to be gained by making her rapid-fire. IMHO. Honestly, I don't like either of these builds. Durance, like any priest, seems to me should be taking the talent that gives him a +10 accuracy to his diety's favored weapons, which happen to be sword and arquebus for Magran. (frankly, it's pretty damned silly that we have a durance carries such a nice staff, but Magran's favored weapons do not include staff!!! Ridiculous.) Also, not enough athletics to empower the Second Chance ability. In Sagani's case, I think that you're throwing away a great chance to use Stormcaller by stiicking with Persistence. As for skills, I don't see Sagani needing nearly that much stealth. She's not a melee character. And ranged characters just don't need that much stealth to get into range of their ranged weapons. Furthermore, not having even a minimum or 3-4 in Athletics means that Sagani will get exhausted far too quickly, like every 2-3 battles. That's just not enough. And frankly, I don't see the point in having that many points in Survival. But if you're really bound and determined to use a build based on Predator's Sense, a) you should take it ASAP, and b) you should probably have Sagani wearing an INT enhancing item to further extend the duration of any wounding effect. I personally don't like sublimating a ranger's own damage production just to empower his animal companion. Oh, if it weren't for the existence of Stormcaller, sticking with Persistence would be a perfectly good decision even without thinking about using it to empower the animal companion. But Stormcaller really seems to me to be a game changer for a ranger, for two reasons. One, it's a pierce or lightning damage bow, with a DR reduction of -6 on any hit. And very few targets are going to be strong against both piercing and lightning damage. And two, the 10% chance of a returning storm proc on any hit. As for sagani's melee weapons, I'd think that you'd want at least one and maybe both of her dual wielded weapons having a wounding effect, if you're going to go hard down the path of empowering the pet this way.

I've added in attributes and skills in Photoshop, they can't actually be displayed like that in the game itself. You may notice that the font and color is not an exact match since I've got no idea what font is actully used on the in-game character sheet. As far as I can tell the portrait was originally meant for some Star Wars character, but you're right, since the lady on it is dressed casually it fits into Pillars of Eternity quite well. The ring is the +4 Int Ring added in the last patch, it's called Gwyn's Band of Union. It's not only the style of clothes. It's also the overall style of the portrait itself. The background looks fairly similar to the backgrounds on many standard PoE portraits. Arguably, the leather jacket the character's wearing may be a little too well made and styled for a fantasy setting, but that's a very minor point compared to the overall quality and in-game viability of the portrait. As for the stats on top being photoshopped in, ok. At least I know. I have to say though that it would be useful to have the inventory screen display them like that. But, oh well. Also, I don't recognize that breast plate. It could be Pallegina's but I don't think so. My best guess is that it's a plain ol' Exceptional Breastplate. It creates a rather interesting look. if I didn't know otherwise, I'd be tempted to say that the character was a Bleak Walker from the look of her. She has a rather grim, utilitarian look to her. That's Blackwarden's Breast, it can be looted from the Iron Flail leader. It's not very good, but it does provide an aura of +15 accuracy vs. Beasts, which pretty much makes her the go-to person to organize dragon hunts or clear out massive spider infestations. I've even respecced her with Beast Slayer talent, added the Beast Slaying enchant to Tidefall and killed the Adra Dragon for the Scale-Breaker talent. It's not something I would normally do, but it fitted the big game hunter theme well. I've always thought that a big game hunter would make for an interesting main character concept. Such a character would want to have a weapon with the beast slaying effect, as well as take the beast slaying talent. And like you point out, spiders are beasts, and there's no lack of spiders in this game to be hunted between dragon hunts. Actually, I've also thought that an "undead hunter" would also make an interesting concept, though having vessels and spirits split into 2 different slaying groups makes it a bit more costly talent wise. Probably better to just pick one, either spirits or vessels. And it's certainly not like there isn't a lack of undead things that need attention in this game either.

The accuracy auto is a double-edged sword. Sure, the accuracy bonus is great, but it also means that if you want to get any use from the aura, you can't spread your characters out to minimize the impact of dragon breath attacks and wing buffets. That said, unlike in BG2 where dragons tended to be solitary creatures and you could spread out "safely" without having to worry about the beast having any allies, in PoE, dragon's always seem to have buddies which seem to make spreading your party out riskier. Of course, if you can deliver some sort of "paralyzing" attack, whether it's actual paralysis or some other similar effect, you effectively turn off the dragon's attacks, and you're free to get on with the slaying.

I've added in attributes and skills in Photoshop, they can't actually be displayed like that in the game itself. You may notice that the font and color is not an exact match since I've got no idea what font is actully used on the in-game character sheet. As far as I can tell the portrait was originally meant for some Star Wars character, but you're right, since the lady on it is dressed casually it fits into Pillars of Eternity quite well. The ring is the +4 Int Ring added in the last patch, it's called Gwyn's Band of Union. It's not only the style of clothes. It's also the overall style of the portrait itself. The background looks fairly similar to the backgrounds on many standard PoE portraits. Arguably, the leather jacket the character's wearing may be a little too well made and styled for a fantasy setting, but that's a very minor point compared to the overall quality and in-game viability of the portrait. As for the stats on top being photoshopped in, ok. At least I know. I have to say though that it would be useful to have the inventory screen display them like that. But, oh well. Also, I don't recognize that breast plate. It could be Pallegina's but I don't think so. My best guess is that it's a plain ol' Exceptional Breastplate. It creates a rather interesting look. if I didn't know otherwise, I'd be tempted to say that the character was a Bleak Walker from the look of her. She has a rather grim, utilitarian look to her.

Magnificate, how did you get the attributes and skills to show up over the character's paper doll in the inventory? Also, nice portrait. Its' pretty close to the standard PoE style. And I have a fondness for portraits where the character isn't wearing armor, whether they'll wearing normally or not. To me, it makes the portraits more flexible for any class of character, since one can assume that every character will occasionally wear street clothes, but not all characters every put on what looks like the plate or breast plate armor that is seen in some portraits. Oh, and I don't recognize the ring on the right. What ring is it?

^ Possibly true, MaxQuest. But it could also be rather costly to buy it back, given the incredible markup on items in PoE.

Been a little while since I've been to that location. I suppose that it's possible that it's hidden in a place that requires a character with a high Mechanics score to see it, the same way that Tidefall is hidden and requires a person with a Mechanics score of 10+ to spot it. I just don't remember if this is the case.

Darn. Well, all the more reason why a very straight forward warbow like Rain is better for Ciphers. As for ciphers and guns, I found that guns were a bit annoying for ciphers because their reload rate is soooo slow that if you miss, it takes a lot longer to fire again. Of course, if you do connect, you get your focus in larger bursts, so there is that. I guess I'm just more comfortable using higher RoF weapons with a steadier, if somewhat lower, increase of focus where misses aren't so painful. But to each his own.

Reload with a save from before you did the enchanting.

Two steps forward, one step back? Yeah, sounds consistent with many other things in-game. I disagree. I don't see as 2 steps forward and one back. I think that typing skills to classes is a VERY GOOD THING. And losing that would reduce the value of classes and weaken the game for me.

Actually, Pampa, I think that a very good case can be made for giving certain casters Lore, because there are some scroll spells that are extremely useful in certain battles, but it also helps to have multiple characters being able to cast those scroll spells so that perhaps one hits. The Paralyze scroll, for example. Or the Revival scroll. Just because one is a caster doesn't mean that you have access to all of the spells on those scrolls. In a tough fight, your priest may be down, but if you have your wizard carrying a Revival scroll and has enough Lore to cast it, he too can cast a Revival spell. And visa versa, a priest or a druid might not have a paralyze spell in their array of class spells, but with enough Lore, they can cast a paralyze scroll spell. Having your casters have Lore allows them to do some cross-caster class casting from scrolls that they wouldn't otherwise be able to do. That's true of course. What I mean is the benefits of high lore are much bigger for non-casters, as their options are much more limited without it. That doesn't mean that casters get no benefits at all, but in most cases a spell from their repertoire is more beneficial than scroll. Can't say the same about rogues, fighter etc., which gain a whole array of new options. Pampa, while I agree that IN THEORY non-casters get a greater bump from Lore than casters do, I think that in practice, most non-casters' role really tends to need them worrying about doing their non-casting things. Oh, maybe a second line non-caster, like a Paladin or a Chanter (sort of a hybrid who gains invocations to cast so slowly that it's hard to see them as normal casters) could be a worthy scroll caster. And sometimes it can be useful to have a front line combatant with the ability to cast a low level spell like Fan of Flames or Shocking Grasp, that's normally difficult for a wizard to cast without exposing himself (unless he's a melee wizard in the first place, of course). As for "in most casts a spell from their repertoire" is better than a scroll, I can't agree. To me, the most important uses of scroll casting are for the casting of Paralyze or Revival spells. And if you don't have either of those spells in your repertoire, then anything you *could* cast probably will NOT be as important as a Paralyze or Revival spell, if those spells are NEEDED in the situation. For example, if you're fighting the some dragons, a Paralyze spell can be critical to victory, and having only a single caster cast Paralyze is a risky thing. Better to have two casters casting paralyze, and worry about what to cast next if and when you succeed in paralyzing the dragon at all. As for Revival, that should be fairly self-explanatory. You're in a difficult fight and you have guys down. Heck, maybe one of them is your priest or a paladin. And you need them back in action. That suddenly becomes more important than any spell the wizard might cast from his own repertoire if he's the one with a revival scroll. As for Rogues and Lore, honestly, Rogues are one class to whome I almost never give any Lore. Why? Because I view their Mechanics skill as so critical, that spending skill points on Lore is a waste. Heck, it's hard enough finding skill points for Stealth, Athletics, and Survival on a Rogue, at least for me, because when I have a rogue in my party, his primary job is traps and locks, not combat. He's there to take care of traps and locks. And if his Mechanics isn't high enough, then he's not getting the job done.

Oh I have noticed! Hence why my rogue has a high mechanics score and my wizard has a high lore score and my fighter has a high athletics score. But I came to the same conclusion as you have. The skills are only useful to take a character out of their typical role and make them into something very slightly different. I just wish they did... more. Wish they had more of a direct impact. Like athletics increasing reflex defense. (Which makes sense.) Survival eventually giving you a heal wounds skill, stealth eventually giving you the ability to go into stealth in combat, etc. So yes, I think I misspoke a bit in the OP. I appreciate that the devs. let you do this. It opens up the types of parties you can have (and allows you to do crazy things like an all wizard party yet still be able to open locks.) BUT, they just seem so... bland and uninteresting. I'm not sure that I like what they've done with the Survival skill. It smacks of a little bit of desperation to make the skill relevant. I think that a better idea might have been to allow survival "heal" a little bit of a character's own health (not END) or possibly a team mate's health outside of battle, similar to Wound Binding or Field Triage, but definitely a non-combat ability. Indeed, perhaps using it might be like a mini-rest. You'd have to stop for a time allow the "survivalist" medic to do his work, maybe requiring 15-30 minutes of down time. Not a real "Rest" like Camping. But enough time for some non-magical binding of wounds, etc. Also, I could see another way to use the survival skill. Use it as a "Foraging" skill. The more points you have in Survival, the less time it might take you to forage up some food and firewood, etc. to provide for adequate rest, even if you had no camping supplies. The way this could work, in theory, is that you'd hit the camping/rest button (out in the wilderness, not in an urban area or a dungeon, etc.), and if you had no camping supplies, you'd have to spend additional time foraging for the food and other necessary items for proper food and rest. Also, I could see adding up all of the points the party has in Survival into a "pool" and the amount of points in survival would be used, rather than that of any single character. One limitation I could see might be that no character whose health bar was in the red could be used in this "survival foraging pool" since that character is too heavily wounded to be out foraging, and should really be off their feet. As for Athletics, another thing I could see it used for is, along the lines you're thinking, as a modifier to Reflex saves, as well as Deflection. Maybe do it this way. Each point of Athletics adds a +1 to Reflex and +1 to Deflection. When you think about it, it's really not a lot, and given the way you "pay" for points in each skill, it gets increasingly more expensive to add additional points to this Athletics training bonus to Reflex and Deflection. Hey, one could even argue that it should modify Fortitude as well, since Athletics is really more than just training yourself to be agile. It could also be seen as "physical toughness" training. Anyways, this is all just some off the wall brainstorming.

Honestly, Gromnir, I disagree with this. I like the idea of skill bonuses being tied to classes. And I don't think that it's stupid in the least. Maybe it's a tried and true thing to do, but that doesn't make it wrong nor stupid. I see it as essentially some base level training in that class, though I'm not entirely sure that I agree with all the bonuses that the devs felt should be assigned. Actually, I just went through all the classes, and the only one I have any significant disagreement on is Fighters. I don't really see why Fighters should be a +1 Lore bonus. Seems to me that they should either be +1 Athletics/+2 Survival, or the reverse. The Lore bonus doesn't make much sense to me, except perhaps that the devs didn't want Fighters to have their mix of class skill bonuses look too much like those for Barbarians or Rangers.

I kinda wish that there were talking skills in the game. That said, I can see one reason why they might have been left out. Since only the PC does the talking, any party member other than the PC would have no need for talking skills. So that leaves only 2 ways to deal with this. One, do what was done and have no talking skills. Or two, they could have had talking skills only for the PC, and given the PC more skill points to distribute when leveling up. The latter would introduce an added layer of complexity, but would have avoided players feeling the need to create PC builds that were strong on the primary dialog attributes (i.e. PER, INT, and/or RES) for no other reason than to have a PC who could open up more dialog options.

Actually, Pampa, I think that a very good case can be made for giving certain casters Lore, because there are some scroll spells that are extremely useful in certain battles, but it also helps to have multiple characters being able to cast those scroll spells so that perhaps one hits. The Paralyze scroll, for example. Or the Revival scroll. Just because one is a caster doesn't mean that you have access to all of the spells on those scrolls. In a tough fight, your priest may be down, but if you have your wizard carrying a Revival scroll and has enough Lore to cast it, he too can cast a Revival spell. And visa versa, a priest or a druid might not have a paralyze spell in their array of class spells, but with enough Lore, they can cast a paralyze scroll spell. Having your casters have Lore allows them to do some cross-caster class casting from scrolls that they wouldn't otherwise be able to do.

But ... but .... but brimsurfer says that Paladins are "useless"! How is it that they're so good for you? (Watch out for the pools of sarcasm around your feet.) Hehe - I don't recall what Brimsufer said: But I won't listen to anyone who says "class X is useless" (except of Brindle88, whom I will stomp ). I think that rogues are inferior to any other class... if I use them. Maybe I don't know how to play them, maybe they just don't fit my playstyle, maybe they fall behind because they didn't get that fancy updates lately - but I would never say they are useless. Somebody who says that a paladin is useless may connect "usefulness" to high dps or something. Don't know. Paladins make a playthrough a lot easier - at least for me. Lots of people say priests are mandatory - I skip them most of the time. Don't know why I have the feeling they don't add much to most of my parties. But why would I call them useless? The other day somebody said monks can do nothing other classes can't do better... I agree completely. Frankly, the real problem here is that far too many people engage in considerable amounts of hyperbole in their online speech. Instead of saying (for example) that class X "doesn't fit my play style" or "I can't seem to get as much out of (class X) as I think I should", too many will say that class X is "useless", which is total hyperbole. No class is "useless". Useless means having no use whatsoever. And NO class in this game has no use whatsoever. One might think that a class is underpowered, or doesn't like how the class was designed, etc. But that's simply not the same thing as a class having zero utility within the game!!! I get that some people are prone to hyperbole. However, when other people point out how their hyperbole is dead wrong, the intelligent and honest person will admit that what they said was exaggerated. I guess that's why it gets annoying when someone refuses to back down from their hyperbole in the face of a great number of other people telling him that the hyperbole is way over the top.

Haven't you noticed that you get a "Second Wind" ability that's based on how many points of Athletics you have? Or that your ability to disarm traps and open locks is tied to how many points of Mechanics you have? Or the spell level of any scrolls you might want to cast spells from being tied to how many points of Lore you have? The amount of Stealth you have dictates how close to an enemy you can get before being spotted. Yeah, 3-4 points is generally enough for a party to get into longer ranged weapons range of the closest enemy. But if you'd like to get a character into MELEE range of an enemy unspotted, you're going to need considerably more than 3 points. Generally speaking, it's not really worth taking that much unless your character is a rogue that wants to backstab an enemy with his first melee strike. Stepping back, I understand that in theory, one could tied a lot of what these "skills" do to higher level attributes. However, that starts to limit characters, particularly considering that the area of effect and duration of special abilities and spells is generically tied to a single attribute, i.e. INT. With the skills system, regardless of what your set of attributes looks like, you can have a different mix of skills depending on the needs of the character. For example, given the way INT is (mis)used in this game, INT tend to be a fairly important attribute for Barbarians. However, I wouldn't say that Lore is a skill that many barbarians would want. It's more likely that they'd value some combination of Athletics, Survival, and Stealth instead. Another example. I often end up using GM in my parties because I like having a cipher along. Most of the time, I have her go heavy on Lore so that I can have her cast spells from scrolls as well as use her cipher powers. However, in my current party, I just didn't feel like having a rogue in the party mix this time around, so I have GM acting as the party's traps and locks specialist, as a "cipher-rogue". And in this role, she's ignoring Lore and is putting a lot of skill points into Mechanics instead. Not basing these skills directly off of attributes allows the player to come up with different "skill" builds regardless of what a character's attribute points are. And even with the Companions, whose attribute points are always set in stone, the player can have a different skill-build from game to game, depending on the party and character's needs.

Gotta say that I'm sorely tempted to dish out a little justice to the Dozen's myself. But I'm aligned with the Crucible Knights, so ... so .... so, what the heck. It's not like my PC is a goody-goody Kind Wayfarer or Shieldbearer. He's "just" an Aumaua fighter looking to find Thaos and smack him around a bit. That said, he could always use a little "smacking around" practice and those meeeeeeeeeeeean Dozens thugs look like they need it. What was it that Minsc would say? Butt-kicking for goodness!!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ePJYbkSykg

But ... but .... but brimsurfer says that Paladins are "useless"! How is it that they're so good for you? (Watch out for the pools of sarcasm around your feet.)

Marceror, it will be interesting to see if PoE2 is a continuation of the PoE PC's story, or if it will start a brand new PC at level 1. Personally, I'm hoping for a continuation, though to be honest (and not really spoiling anything here), the level cap in PoE/WM1&2 is level 16, so if you've reached level 16, you're quite a force to be reckoned with. I don't remember what level the PC ends up at in BG2 pre-ToB, but I'm thinking that it wasn't as high as level 16. Or if it was, you may not have been as powerful as a 16th level PoE character. So, anyways, who's to say? It could be a continuation, though if it was, the PC would end up being amazingly powerful, far beyond what he is at the end of PoE1 with the expansions. Or it could be a story based on an entirely new PC. Only time will tell. But moving on, what I'd like to see is for PoE to take place elsewhere on Eora, in a location or locations with a VERY different environment than the Dyrwood. The nicely green forests of the Dyrwood and the wintery terrain of the White March is all well and good. But let's go some place(s) where there are different environments. IIRC, the Living Lands are said to have vastly different environments from valley to valley. That might be a good place to go to see a lot of variation in environments. One area might be jungle, the next might be a desert, and so on.

No but she is an excellent sniper. Few casters can resist Wrath + Alpha Strike FoD. Basically, it is a good trade. Pallegina's stats actually seem pretty decent to me when you really think about it. Paladins are a fairly stat intensive class who derive value from nearly ever stat. And Pallegina's stats are relatively well balanced across the board. It seems to me that it's arguable that if you min-max a paladin too much, you'll end up leaving the character weak in some areas. A high might/int pally may be great for auras and healing, but may end up with an overly low PER (unless you seriously dump other stats) and find yourself having difficulty hitting enemies. Pallegina with her balanced stats may not hit enemies as hard as a high Might pally, but she probably hits more often because of her decent PER. As for her racial ability, Lima may call it lackluster compared to moon GL's. But I think that one could turn it around as say that Moon GL's racial ability is just plain OP compared to other racials, particularly GL racials. (Frankly, the Moon GL racial would seem a lot less OP if it only affected the character itself and didn't generate a healing aura.)

Doppel, you make a number of very interesting points. The way things are now with monks, armor is basically the player's means of managing how much damage is taken vs how many wounds the monk can build up. It's not really the same as it is with all other classes. A monk that over armors himself will find himself unable to get the wounds necessary to power his abilities. OTOH, too little armor/DR and the monk can take more damage than he really wants to be taking and get knocked out before he can put all those wounds to good use. It's a tricky balance. Your point about having orders for monks is very interesting. That said, I don't think that it'd really be possible to have different orders radically change the basic structure of the class. Instead of having orders like those of paladins or priests, you could functionally end up with each monk order looking like an entirely different class with very different abilities. One order might favor lightly/un-armored, unarmed martial artists, while another might favor more heavily armored, monks who fight with weapons. Looking at these two extremes, they look more like entirely different classes, rather than sub-classes (i.e. orders) of the same basic class. On a side note, I think that the idea of a Kensai like "monk" sounds interesting. The character might select a single weapon type at creation (though I suppose one could respec out of it), and like with monk fists, perhaps the character gains additional accuracy and damage bonuses as he progresses up the levels, but at the cost of not being able to select any weapon focuses. His "weapon focus" would be on that single weapon type. I suppose that this could also be the basis for an entirely new class as well. A class with significant commonalities with monks, but made into a new class so that it could have abilities and in-class talents that were more appropriate for a "kensei". I don't know if it'd be a good idea to outright prevent a "kensei" from picking up a non-favored weapon. But the kensei should only be able to get all his special bonuses while using his favored weapon, possibly even take significant accuracy and damage penalties for trying to wield a non-favored weapon as a strong incentive for not doing so.